CHAPTER XXVI

HOW THEY FOUGHT IN THE CLEFT

The route Palma had chosen, when at last they turned off the posting road, was a little-used track leading up into the Yablonois, rough travelling amid broken black hills, whose feet were sparsely clad with ancient growths of larch and fir, and their crests powdered with snow. At times the way led through dark defiles, with brawling streams gnashing sudden white teeth at them as they passed, and then they were crawling slowly over rugged humps of the hills, amid ever-increasing desolation and a loneliness that grew more and more profound.

Not one traveller did they encounter after quitting the main road. Only once, in a distant hollow, they caught a glimpse of the beasts and tents of some nomadic tribe, with thin blue wreaths of smoke hanging over them. But these were the only signs of humanity; they conveyed no sense of friendliness and served only to accentuate the surrounding loneliness.

Twice they had changed horses and drivers at lonely little posting stations, and had obtained welcome cups of hot tea and such coarse eatables as the places afforded. But the tea atoned for all shortcomings, and, apart from other matters, they were all in hopeful spirits at the success which had attended their risky adventure so far.

Palma indeed kept a cautious eye on the rear whenever they topped a point of vantage. And Blok and Rimof, bumping merrily along in the teléga some distance behind the tarantas, had their faces turned hopefully over their shoulders most of the time.

While the stout little horses scrambled painfully up the rocky ways, the travellers in the tarantas talked quietly at times of the past, and more briefly of the future. Serge told them shortly of his first escape and recapture, and of his final escape after another change of names at Tomsk. He congratulated himself and them on the forethought which had long since led his father to deposit a certain portion of his fortune in the hands of his old friend, Charles Gerrardius, the great Geneva banker; just as he himself had made provision for Hope by banking money in her name with Rothschilds' in London. It was thanks to this that his way had been comparatively easy when once he got clear of Russian territory, and what a poor man could only have dreamt of doing, a rich man had been able to accomplish--thus far at all events.

As to the future, they spoke but little. It was in the balances and the scales might go against them. To count upon it--even to discuss it over-much--seemed to savour of presumption, and felt like a tempting of Providence.

"Is there nothing we can do for Russia?" asked Hope sadly.

"Nothing!" said Serge sombrely. "Until the ground is cleared of its present growth, nothing! And the clearing will have to come from the bottom, I fear, since the top cares for nothing but keeping top. The reckoning day will come sometime and it will be a terrible one."

"Poor Russia!" sighed Hope.

"Poor Russians!" said Serge, "who sit quietly under the yoke and suffer like oxen."

A shrill whistle from the rear stopped him. He sprang half out of his seat and leaned out, looking anxiously backwards.

Then he called to the driver to stop, and leaped down and went to meet the teléga.

"What is it?" he asked, as it drew near.

"Bandits, brigands, nomads," cried Blok and Rimof eagerly, with nods and winks behind the driver's back. "About a dozen, as far as we can see, mounted and coming up smartly."

"Ah! Then it looks as if you were not to be done out of your fun, boys."

He looked carefully round. They were in an upland valley. Ahead, the road wound away into the mountains through a narrow defile, a cleft with almost perpendicular sides of scarped rock.

"How far to the next station?" he asked the driver of the teléga, who sat listening impassively.

"About twenty versts, barin."

"That is the place for us, boys," said Palma, with a nod towards the cleft in the rocks.

"Couldn't be better," said Blok, with enthusiasm.

"We'll halt at this end," said Rimof. "You go on and see if it is better still farther in."

They could see the pursuers plainly now, as they bobbed over a distant ridge and disappeared into the hollow. Palma ran back to the tarantas, out of which Hope and Pavlof were peering anxiously. His nod to Pavlof told him what there was to tell.

"Go ahead!" to the driver, "and smartly."

"Come, my little ones!" chirruped the driver, and the tarantas rolled on into the cleft.

"What is it?" asked Hope.

"Brigands, the boys say"--so much for the benefit of the driver, who, however, showed no interest in the matter. "They may be after us, they may not. Blok and Rimof are anxious to have a chat with them."

He was looking out ahead as he talked, and examining the lie of the land carefully. They shaved an angle of rock with a heavy lurch and turned sharp to the right. Palma leaped out.

"That will do!" to the driver. "Stop! Loose your horses and take them round that next loop and wait there."

"Yes, barin."

"You had better go too, Hope."

She hesitated a moment as if with the intention of objecting. Then she turned and went after the horses.

"The boys are waiting at the entrance," said Palma. "This is better. We will go for them," and he and Pavlof ran back along the road.

Five minutes later the teléga stood alongside the tarantas just inside the sharp turn of the road. The driver stolidly did as he was told and followed his companion round the next loop with his horses. Another five minutes' pulling and hauling and the teléga was in position across the road, jammed tight against the left wall of the cleft and blocking it completely, except a two-foot space between its front and the opposite wall. And the tarantas stood across the road inside it, jammed tight against the right wall and leaving only a similar space between its front and the left-hand wall.

The barricade was perfect, thanks to the formation of the cleft. To horsemen it was impossible, and to storm it on foot the attack must come under, among the wheels, or over the top, or must wind in single file through the narrow openings between the vehicles.

Palma laughed grimly when it was completed.

"If they work through that they'll deserve all they get," he said, and the four men stood expectantly behind their barricade, and waited events.

"Take this," said Palma, holding out a revolver to Pavlof. "We can't have the game spoiled by a handful of Cossacks."

Blok and Rimof, in their capacity of orderlies, carried Berdan rifles with a bandolier of cartridges over the shoulder.

Presently the sound of hoofs echoed in the angle of the rocks above them. Then the regular footfalls turned into a confused trampling and scrabbling, as the horsemen halted in a bunch at sudden sight of the obstruction and backed away from it.

Palma stepped quietly between the two vehicles and confronted them.

"Well, what's the matter now?" he asked.

"You are Lieutenant Vinsky?" asked one, shaking his horse a step or two out of the throng. Pavlof, looking over the barricade, saw that it was Lieutenant Tschak, Sokolof's right-hand man, _vice_ Razin retired through the hunger-strike, but of exactly the same breed and as like him as twin peas. The rest were low-browed, heavy-faced fellows of the ordinary Cossack type. All their little black eyes were fixed sullenly on Palma, as though casting up to him the account of their long, hard ride.

Palma nodded curtly, and asked again, "What is it you want?"

"You and your party are to return," said Tschak brusquely.

"Ah! and why?"

"Captain Sokolof's orders."

"I am not under Captain Sokolof's orders and I shall not return."

"Then we are to bring you."

"Be advised, my friend, and don't attempt it."

"We have our orders," said Tschak.

"And I have mine."

Tschak shook his bridle again and his pony made a step forward.

Palma held up a warning hand.

"We shall both regret it if worse comes of this. I warn you if you try to pass that barrier we shall stop you," and he stepped back behind the carriages and drew his companions round the angle of the rock.

They could not see the enemy, nor the enemy them, till one or other advanced. The barricade, however, the crux of the matter, was visible to both parties.

"We could get well ahead while they are thinking about it," said Pavlof, from no feeling of cowardice, but from a simple vast distaste for the killing of men, deepened in this case by the knowledge that they were only doing their duty and had no personal animus in the matter.

"It would only be a postponement of the evil," said Palma, "and a throwing away of our chances. We are impregnable here.----I'm sorry, but the lives of ten Cossacks weigh nothing against what I am here for."

It was late in the afternoon and the shadows were already abroad in that gloomy cleft. Palma passed round his cigarettes, and they leaned against the boulders smoking quietly and listening intently.

Blok and Rimof were restless to be doing. To quiet them their leader gave them permission to steal into the tarantas and learn what the opposing force was up to.

Blok was back in a moment, with a smile all over his face.

"They're doing the same as we are--sitting smoking and thinking about it," he said.

"A rest before the assault," said Palma quietly, "and the last smoke for some of them if they try that corner. Keep a sharp eye on them, Loris. It will be dark in ten minutes, then they'll make a move. The moment they do so, come back here both of you," and young Blok slipped away to join his friend.

The shadows deepened in the well of the cleft till the barricade was only a darker shadow among them.

Blok's voice whispered suddenly alongside Palma and Pavlof. "They are withdrawing down the valley."

"Out of earshot for instructions. They'll come back presently. Well, they've had their warning. Fetch Alex, Loris. They will come with a rush, poor devils! And their shooting will be wild and free, and we can't afford any useless risks," and Bloke stole away again into the deeper shadow.

Such waiting tries the temper of a man's courage as no actual fighting can, and if his mettle lack steel it saps and runs, and leaves him limp for the fray. But to Hope, sitting solitary on a rock behind the next turn of the road, this anxious waiting was more terrible still.

She wove her fingers tight, and bowed her head, and prayed numbly. Her life, and the lives of the men down the road, were at stake. Liberty at such a price was dearly purchased.

Suppose Paul should be killed, what would life be worth to her? Suppose they were all killed, what would become of her?--left alone in the wilderness with these rough boors, who sat smoking impassively and thought more--if they thought at all--of the safety of their horses than of the lives in the balance down yonder.

She jumped up, and went to the bend of the road, and peered down it into the darkness. But there was not a sound, and her anxiety deepened every instant.

She took a step or two round the corner, stopped, and stood listening. It was no good going. Her presence would only hamper them, and their hands were overfull as it was.

Then a sudden vicious spurt of flame ripped out of the ground in the nearer darkness in front. In a moment the angle of the cleft blazed with intermittent flashes and echoed with shots and shouts. Something sang past her in the darkness, and she ran back and dropped on her rock, and held her hands over her ears. And alongside her the drivers grunted guttural ejaculations over their pipes, and the horses stamped restlessly at the turmoil.

Loris Blok had withdrawn along the road with the rest after recalling Rimof. But he was one of those restless souls who find it impossible to wait doing nothing, and he was aching for a fight. He had in his time suffered at the hands of the authorities, both as student and prisoner. He had seen his comrades beaten down and ridden over in the streets of Moscow. He had seen them shot down in the open and done to death in the prisons, and he hated the doers of these things, head and hand, from the highest to the lowest, with a very bitter hatred.

The only fear he had was lest the enemy should withdraw--even now, at this ultimate moment, when everything was shaping so well for a settlement of old scores, and forces were, as he considered it, so evenly balanced.

The pursuers were, indeed, nearly three to one, but the position was against them. It would be a tremendous pity if such an opportunity were allowed to slip. Sooner than let that happen he would venture much.

Inch by inch, in the dark, he edged noiselessly away from the others towards the barricade. He knelt down and crept between the hind wheels of the teléga and the rock wall. He craned his head round the corner, and became instantly aware of a similar approach from the other side.

He waited in joyful suspense. He held his breath. His rifle barrel slipped cautiously through his left hand, till his right hand was on the lock.

There was a shuffling of many feet outside, a click of the tongue such as one uses to start a horse, and Blok opened fire.

A guttural curse and a stumble, the crash of many rifles, the splintering of wood, the spat of bullets on rock, and the bend of the cleft blazed fitfully in the intermittent flashes.

But Blok lay still and fired no more. He had disobeyed orders and he had paid the price.

Half-a-dozen dark figures slipped in round the end of the teléga, and some came out round the end of the tarantas, and some from underneath it, and some stood and fired over it. Other hands seized the teléga and slewed it round into the roadway to widen the approach.

But, as the dark figures emerged from the darkness of the tarantas, the three defenders opened fire, with revolvers and rifle, and man after man went down.

The cleft boiled like a mighty pot in the light of the continuous flashes. It was full of wreathing smoke and vicious cracklings and wild-flying lead.

That first shot from beneath the teléga had told Palma Blok's story. He curtly bade the others grimp to the rock, but himself stood out in the narrow way and shot down man after man as they issued round, or crept from under, the tarantas. One might almost have thought him careless of his life. When his revolver was empty, and still they came, he ran in and used the butt on any head or face that offered.

Rimof's Berdan rang out alongside Pavlof as fast as he could snap in the cartridges. But the besieger's bullets were two to one in spite of casualties, and presently Pavlof heard the clang of a rifle as it fell on the rocky way at his feet, and then the sprawling fall of a man.

He was bending to him, when, in the fitful glare in front, he saw Palma fall in a heap also, and he ran forward to help him. The men behind the tarantas gave a hoarse shout, and the cleft blazed and boiled again. Pavlof felt a bullet rip through his coat. Another stung through his shoulder like the searing of a hot iron, and spun him round and dropped him on Palma's body.

Then what were left of the besiegers came panting round the barricade, and stumbled on the two bodies, and kicked them and cursed them. Pavlof sat up. Palma lay still.

By Lieutenant Tschak's orders one of his men kicked some planks out of the side of the teléga, and started a fire for the purpose of ascertaining casualties. He swore roundly as the bodies were dragged up one by one and laid in a line. Six of his men lay there dead or wounded. Blok was dead. Rimof was dead. By the crackling flames Pavlof endeavoured to find out if Palma was dead. There was a hole in his breast from which the blood was welling, but he groaned as Pavlof attempted to staunch it with his handkerchief.

"Dead?" growled Lieutenant Tschak, looking down at them.

"Wounded here," said Pavlof, pointing to the hole, "but he lives still," and went on with his bandaging.

"The worse for him," said Lieutenant Tschak.

Then Hope stole silently into the circle of light, her white face pinched and drawn with her fears. She saw Pavlof, she saw whose body he was bending over, and she ran to them with a cry.

"Is he dead?" she asked breathlessly.

"Not dead, Hope, but sorely wounded, I fear."

She had held herself with a tight hand till now, but at sight of those stark bodies, and of this one, she broke down and sobbed convulsively.

Serge opened his eyes and looked up at her in a dazed way. Then his glance wandered to Pavlof and rested meditatively on him for a moment. Then it passed on to the coppery glow of the firelight on the rocky walls, and his brow puckered as though he were trying hard to recollect all that had passed.

Pavlof saw his lips move and bent over him.

"Failed," he murmured faintly.

"No man could have done more, Serge. We are very grateful."

"More harm than good. Sorry!"

"Does it pain you?"

"Yes----I'm done----What will you do?"

"We are in God's hands," said Hope gently, and sank down beside him and drew his head on to her lap.

The shadow of a smile trembled on his lips, and there was a flickering spark in his eyes as he looked up at her.

"God keep you, dear," he said, very softly, and turned his eyes on Pavlof again, and said, "And you."

A great pity for him filled Hope's heart. She bent down and kissed his forehead and he lay still. And presently, as they watched him, he sighed gently, and stretched himself out like a weary man.

Hope bent over him weeping. She thought he was dead. Pavlof stood up.

"He will die if you move him," he said to Lieutenant Tschak.

"So! He will have to be moved all the same," said Tschak. "Where are your horses?"

"Up the road," and having done all he could for Palma, he turned to the others and examined their wounds, and showed their comrades how to bind them up till better could be done for them.

And presently, the stolid-faced drivers came slowly down with the horses, and led them stolidly past the row of dead bodies, and harnessed them to their respective vehicles.

The only exclamation that fell from them was from the driver of the teléga at the sight of the broken side.

"Da! Some one will have to pay for that. My word, yes!"

An hour later they were on their way back to Kara. Hope and the wounded men in the tarantas, Palma's head in her lap, and her heart bruising for his sake with every bump of the heavy wheels. The dead were piled promiscuously into the teléga, and Pavlof rode one of the dead men's horses.

Lieutenant Tschak was the only reasonably cheerful member of the party. He had been instructed to bring back the fugitives alive or dead, and he was bringing them back, not one missing.

The bitterness and shock of the catastrophe were still too close and sudden not to weigh heavily on the spirits of Hope and Pavlof. For the present they could only mourn their loss, without a thought for the distressing complication which Serge's death would remove from their path. He had made a gallant attempt at their rescue, he had given his life for them, and their hearts were very sore for him.

The Cossacks, whole and wounded alike, bore themselves stolidly. If, now and again, at the bumping of the tarantas over the rocky way, one or another growled a curse, and feathered it at Hope with a white side-glance, it missed its mark, for she took no notice. She was thinking of Serge and of Pavlof, and wondering dully what the end of it all would be.

At the best, she supposed, it would mean Kara for life for Paul. She did not see how he could possibly have acted otherwise than he had done. But he had broken bounds and he must suffer the consequences. Well, they had been very happy at Kara. They would still be together. Her heart chilled at thought of what might have been, and glowed again at thought of what was.

Suppose it had been Pavlof's head which lay like a clod on her knee, ah, how desolate her state then! So, even in the depths of her distress, she found a ray of consolation and cause for thankfulness, and these helped her to bear herself with a certain rigid composure.

It was long after midnight when they hammered on the door of the post-house from which they had started out that afternoon, and the startled postmaster came near to losing his wits when he saw the gruesome company that summoned him.

The wounded men were carried in, one by one, and laid on the floor. Serge would never have got into the house alive but for Hope's tender care and Pavlof's insistent endorsement of it. They were brutalised by usage and careless to bodily suffering, those Cossacks of the mines. But some of them had been under Pavlof's hands in the hospital and his word still had weight with them. As it was, and in spite of all their care, the handling started Palma's wound bleeding again. He was barely alive, but he opened his heavy eyes and groaned as they carried him in, and seemed to wonder that they could not leave him to die in peace.

Pavlof, with his one arm, could do little more for him or the others than had already been done on the field. His own shoulder was stiff and painful, but the bullet had gone clean through without smashing the bone, and it was only a question of care and nursing.

In the corner of the room allotted to them, they staunched Palma's wound again and bound him up as well as they were able, and Hope bathed Pavlof's shoulder and renewed his own hasty bandages; and then, under his instructions, did what little could be done for the others. They suffered her ministrations in silence and gave her no thanks, but still the occupation was a relief to her. Even minutes saved from the contemplation of one's own troubles are minutes gained.

In time, some black bread and tea, with "cutlets" of chopped meat, were brought to them, and after their long fast, and all they had gone through, they felt the need of them. Paul succeeded in getting a few drops of vodka down Palma's throat, and the onlookers considered it good liquor wasted and did not scruple to say so.

Then the soldiers lighted their pipes and the atmosphere became thick and pungent. Their stolidity relaxed somewhat, and they roughly fought the battle over again, and illuminated it with oaths and jokes and jibes. And to Hope--with the dead men lying outside in a ghastly heap in the teléga, and Serge lying like death alongside her on the floor, and Paul dozing fitfully against the wall--it was all a nightmare of horrors, and she never forgot it.

She was weary beyond words, but she could not sleep. Now and again her tired eyes closed in repulsion against the acrid smoke and the slimy things that crept about the walls; but there was no escape from the sounds and the smells, and, bodily, as well as mentally, she felt sick to death.

That night of purgatory seemed as though it would never end. It was but a few hours in reality, but to her it was a long-drawn, sickening agony, which stretched back further than she could bear to think of, and forward beyond all hope of amelioration.

But day broke at last. The light stole dimly through the thick-paned window, and the distorted shadows resolved themselves into the forms of men lying huddled in uncouth attitudes. Paul woke up with a start, and, with a glance at her which pinched his lips for her suffering, he bent over Palma to see if he were still alive.

He was breathing, but no more, and it seemed doubtful to Paul if he would be got into the tarantas alive.

But Lieutenant Tschak had no compunctions about making the attempt. Under his autocratic ordering, every man who could swallow got a bowl of hot tea and a hunch of bread. Then the sick were carried out, with small attention to their groanings, and the funereal procession set off at a foot pace for the journey home. Two of the wounded Cossacks got there before they reached Kara; and when they rumbled slowly through Ust Kara, through which they had rattled so briskly the day before, Hope's companions in the tarantas were two dead men, and two sorely wounded, and Serge Palma--and him she feared dead, since he showed no signs of life.